Hello my readers!! Sorry I haven’t posted in such a long time. I have an incurable disease called “Tamaditis” (extreme laziness). I have such a long backlog of trips and restaurants I decided to start with my latest trip to Hokkaido and hopefully work backwards.
I’ve never been to Hokkaido and I used to envy all those winter pictures I see on social media. Last July my 2 college friends and I went to see the popular summer flowers in Hokkaido. One day I hope to go during winter.
We took Japan Airlines just because it was the cheapest at the time. I was pleasantly surprised how roomy the seat and space was in economy. Another thing that delighted us was the quantity of food they served. For lunch we were served an entree with two appetizers, salad, bread, chocolate chip cookie, rice crackers and Haagen-Daz ice cream for dessert. How cool is that!
Upon arrival at Narita we had to take the free shuttle bus to terminal 3 which is one of their domestic airports for our flight to Sapporo. My friend told me to buy some snacks because we might get hungry since there was no food on the flight so I bought my favorite hardboiled eggs from Lawson’s inside the terminal. My friends also bought sandwiches and onigiri.
Terminal 3 has a nice food court. There weren’t that many choices but I was happy that my favorite udon was there. I’ve never tried Miyatake Sanuki Udon before but it was good! It was the same format as other udon places, select a bowl of hot or cold udon then choose from a variety of cooked tempura.
I chose something new to me, the Citrus Sudachi Udon, which to my surprise was cold udon. The broth was clean and citrusy and perfect for summer. I chose my usual chikuwa (fish roll similar to fish ball) and super sweet sweet potato.
My friend Jenny had the kitsune udon. Kitsune is sweet fried tofu pouch.
Vivian doesn’t know what she ordered and she enjoyed it. Ps she’s super duper skinny.
Upon arrival at Chitose Airport we took the JR Airport Express train which took us to Sapporo station in 36 minutes and cost ¥1,070 one way. We were late in booking our hotel and JR Tower was fully booked so I chose Hotel Gracery which was right across Sapporo station. I loved the location. It was about 5 minutes walk to Sapporo station so it was super convenient when we took short trips out of town. We even met our bus tour group at the station. I highly suggest you stay near the station your first time in Sapporo. There were 5-6 department stores and a ton of eating options at the station. There was a Bake (cheese tarts) and Little Mermaid Bakery at the station among other important things.
I booked a triple room with 3 single beds. It was a tight fit but they managed to squeeze in small side table on both ends of the room. How tight was it? When I stand up to go to the bathroom my face is just a few inches from the wall. Once I stood up too fast and actually hit the wall. On the positive side the duvet was thick and luxurious. The pillows were a standard polyfill and a firm buckwheat. We all had very good sleep.
We had 3 full size luggages and 2 hand carry and it fit in our petite room. We just had to take turns opening our luggage. 😀
The small room wasn’t lacking in amenities. There was a small ref, hot water pot, air filter, ironing board, safe and a tv.
2 hooks by the entrance made up the entire closet.
No counter space in the bathroom so I utilized my hanging toiletry bag.
The small bathroom had complete amenities like Shiseido face soap, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, hair dryer, fabric spray (for your clothes to smell nice and clean everyday) and everything else you could possibly need.
I used all these and they were nice products.
For an additional $10 we added daily breakfast buffet in the hotel. It was worth it!
Nice of the hotel to provide take-out coffee.
The restaurant had a nice selection of Western and Asian dishes which rotated every two days.
OMG look!!! Remember the shirts I gave away for my anniversary? I’m pretty sure she’s from HK. What are the chances she’ll have breakfast with Shoot First Eat Later? LOL
My daily drink was their iced coffee. They also have strawberry and carrot smoothies as well as fermented milk (tasted like Yakult) and perilla juice everyday.
How cute are these bottle handles? We tried to look for them in ¥100 stores but didn’t see it.
So these were what I ate everyday (one plate a day ha!). After trying several dishes my favorites were the saury fish in soy sauce, karaage (fried chicken) and fried potato cakes.
The fried potato cakes were coated with a sweetish soy based sauce and had chewy mochi like texture that’s why I liked them so much. My friends preferred to eat good Japanese white rice.
This entry took me 3 weeks to complete Lol. I hope to finish blogging about my entire trip. Wish me luck!!
Shoot First Eat Later 